Brenda Gazzar

reporter

Recent articles

Missing persons

Los Angeles police asked for the public’s help Sunday to locate a Special Olympian from Albania who participated in the World Games and was last seen Saturday night on the USC campus.Andi Gusmari, 44, of Albania was last seen on the campus at about 8:30 p.m. Saturday night at a festival, said LAPD Officer Jack Richter, a spokesman. Gusmari, who does not speak English, was discovered missing when he failed to return to his dormitory that night.Gusmari was last seen...

Immigration policy

Lesser-known changes in immigration enforcement announced by President Barack Obama in November could offer a “degree of protection” from deportation for up to 9.6 million of the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally, according to a new report by the Migration Policy Institute.In contrast, the highly publicized...

News

Los Angeles >> While an American prisoner of war and forced laborer during World War II, James T. Murphy refused to bow to Japanese military officials of any rank, feigning a bad back or other injury.“My Bible tells me bow to no man, only bow down to your Lord,” Murphy, 94, of Santa Barbara County, recalled Sunday. “They said, if you think you have a bad back now, just wait a minute, and they used to beat me in the back (and say) now you’ll bow ...

Correctional systems

Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell said late Sunday he has ordered changes in the jails after learning that an inmate was allegedly left handcuffed and deprived of food for more than 30 hours following an arrest last month.A new around-the-clock team has been created to facilitate movement of inmates to a housing area where they...

Crime

While homicides are down, total violent crimes in Los Angeles are up about 21 percent over last year, with aggravated assaults up 26 percent, rapes increasing by 8 percent and robbery up 17 percent, according to midyear data released Wednesday.There was also a 12 percent increase in overall crime during the first six months of the year over last year — the first time in more than a decade that there was an uptick, city officials said.• Photos:

Voting

PACOIMA >> With her 5-month-old granddaughter in tow, Adriana Rivera made the trip from Lancaster to Pacoima last week to talk to an immigration specialist about becoming a U.S. citizen.The green card holder of nearly five years wants to become naturalized to help her undocumented parents in Panorama City gain citizenship but also dreams of voting in the 2016 general election.“They say unity creates strength,” Rivera, 40, said in Spanish during a citizenship...

Executions

A Supreme Court decision upholding a controversial drug used in lethal injection executions in Oklahoma starts the clock for California to come up with its own injection procedures, thus increasing the chance executions could resume here.The justices on Monday ruled 5-4 that the sedative midazolam, which was implicated in several botched...

Homicide

NORTH HOLLYWOOD >> Desarie Saravia was a tough little girl who could carry a gallon of milk at the age of 2 and fall out of a bunk bed with hardly a whimper.But at 5, she died after being sexually assaulted and brutally beaten in 2004 by her mother’s boyfriend in a women’s restroom at Hasley Canyon Park in Castaic. Antonio Rodriguez, who was convicted of numerous charges, including murder, torture and assault on a child causing death, was

Homicide

For three decades, Sandy Verna Jackson has longed for the day her husband’s killers would be executed.Raynard Cummings and Kenneth Gay were convicted of first-degree murder for fatally shooting Los Angeles police motorcycle Officer Paul Verna six times during a traffic stop in Lake View Terrace in June 1983. The parolees, who authorities said were trying to avoid arrest for a series of violent robberies in the San Fernando Valley, were sentenced to death in 1985. Gay’s...

Homicide

San Quentin >> Raynard Cummings says he has been “fighting to live” on California’s death row for nearly three decades.It’s not just in the courtroom, where the convicted killer of LAPD motor officer Paul Verna hopes to have his death sentence overturned. Cummings, who was raised in Pacoima, says he is also waging a battle of survival within the walls of the notorious San Quentin State Prison.“Prison is no place for the weak of mind,...